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A Channel Island stargazer was lucky enough to capture last night's 'Super Wolf' moon howl through the sky in astounding detail.
Elaine Mahy took the stunning shots from Vale in Guernsey.
The photographer says she's had a keen interest in astronomy since childhood, and has been putting that into practice over the past two years with the help of the Societe Guernsiaise's Astronomy Section, which has "helped and encouraged" her with her astrophotography.
And the results show.
Last night, the islander captured the full lunar eclipse spectacle on camera during which the Moon appeared to glow red and appeared brighter and closer to Earth than normal.
The effect is the result of the Earth passing between the Sun and Moon, with the Moon moving into the Earth's shadow. Sunlight reaches the moon, bending around the edges of the Earth, leading to a small amount of red light illuminating the Moon enough for gazers to see it.
After many hours snapping away in the cold and "between banks of cloud", Elaine kindly shared the photos of what is the last lunar eclipse to be completely viewable from the Channel Islands until December 2029 with Express, along with her observations...
Full moon (Super wolf moon) a few hours before eclipse…
When clouds cleared and my alarm went off, this was waiting in the sky. A sliver of penumbral shadow remaining; almost totality of umbral shadow. Exposed for the bright part…
A spectrum of colours of refracted sunlight passing across the moon, due to the Earth’s atmosphere. A small white edge of direct sunlight remains…
Start of totality..
12 minutes into totality before it clouded over!
Line of totality (umbral shadow) clearing down the moon's face during a rare thinning of the cloud...
Last picture I could get with the shrinking umbral shadow between clouds…
Photos courtesy of Elaine Mahy, Guernsey.
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